Blame game

[jhetley]

I'm not sure why some people seem to think Bush is more to blame for the planning and aid catastrophe than, say, the mayor of New Orleans or the governor of Louisiana. The latter two are "on the ground" and should have seen impending disaster long before Katrina started swirling -- hell, I could see it from over a thousand miles away. Public television saw it years ago and broadcast it on national TV.

The governor, and to a much greater extent the mayor, are directly responsible to exactly those people at risk. Those two don't have their attention spread over fifty states and assorted territories, as well as international questions. Don't know about Louisiana, but Maine has its own emergency management agency. We have a county agency, and one for our city. I think our city stirred up more emergency storm shelters for our last hurricane than New Orleans did, with less than a tenth the population and far lower threat.

And as far as national policy goes, any disaster plan formed for New Orleans under the Clinton administration would still be valid. Hell, one laid out under _Kennedy_ would still cover the major points -- those levees have been too low and weak for generations.

So yes, blame Bush and his evil henchmen. But don't let the mayor and the governor off the hook. One reason why they are screaming and pointing is so you won't look at _them_.

Comments

[copperwise.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, they were all briefed at the same time on what was predicted to happen. Since they turned to him immediately, it does indicate that they were at least being proactive about it. Everything I've seen in the media indicates that the local governments of the affected areas were in the trenches at the time, actually making the attempt. I certainly think their long range disaster planning was terribly poor, at least in comparison to the local government planning I see in my town.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

"I certainly think their long range disaster planning was terribly poor, at least in comparison to the local government planning I see in my town."

Ayuh. What set me off was a TV snippet of some local official ("parish" something-or-other) bitching about how FEMA wouldn't let his folks unload a flatbed trailer of generators until a FEMA flunky inspected them. Said they had hospitals without power....

Okay. Around here, hospitals and nursing homes and such _have_ to have permanent generator backup power. Hell, our city effing _library_ has a backup generator. I've designed a number of schools with backup power. One of them, off by the New Brunswick border, ran on generator power for two weeks straight after the Great Ice Storm. Emergency storm shelter, Maine style.